During his March 18 Wednesday audience, Pope Leo reflected on how through Baptism, the faithful share in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and kingly mission, continuing his catechesis on documents of the Second Vatican Council.
“The Council Fathers teach that the Lord Jesus, through the new and eternal Covenant, has established a kingdom of priests, constituting his disciples as a ‘royal priesthood,’” Pope Leo said. “This common priesthood of the faithful is given with Baptism, which enables us to worship God in spirit and truth, and to ‘confess before men the faith which they have received from God through the Church.’”
Reflecting on Lumen gentium, Pope Leo said that through Baptism and Confirmation, the faithful are not only bestowed with special graces, but also entrusted with a sacred responsibility.
“Through the sacrament of Confirmation,” he said in his audience, “all the baptized ‘are more perfectly bound to the Church … and the Holy Spirit endows them with special strength so that they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ.’”
The Holy Father also said that the sacraments provide the faithful with an opportunity to live out the graces they receive through participation in the life of the Church.
“Through prayer, asceticism and active charity,” Pope Leo said, “we thus bear witness to a life renewed by God’s grace. As the Council summarizes, ‘it is through the sacraments and the exercise of the virtues that the sacred nature and organic structure of the priestly community is brought into operation.’”
Continuing, the Holy Father turned to how the faithful share in Christ’s prophetic mission, highlighting the sensus fidei, or sense of the faith, a supernatural instinct given by the Holy Spirit in Baptism that helps the faithful, within the Church, recognize and hold fast to the truth of the Gospel.
“The sense of faith, therefore,” he said, “belongs to individual believers not in their own right, but as members of the People of God as a whole.”
The Holy Father explained that this communion calls every baptized person to participate in the proclamation of the Gospel.
“From this unity,” Pope Leo said, “which the Magisterium of the Church safeguards, it follows that every baptized person is an active agent of evangelization, called to bear consistent witness to Christ in accordance with the prophetic gift which the Lord bestows upon His whole Church.”
The Holy Father then pointed to how the faithful share in Christ’s kingly mission, noting that the Holy Spirit equips them with the graces necessary to serve the Church.
“Indeed, the Holy Spirit, who comes to us from the Risen Christ, ‘distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank,” he said. “By these gifts He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church.’”
The Pontiff urged the faithful to give thanks to the Lord for their participation in the life of the Body of Christ.
“It is important,” Pope Leo said, “that we recognize these manifold gifts and express our gratitude to God for allowing us to be partakers in his work of salvation.”